


Quick, Pull, Trigger

by operationhades



Category: Supernatural, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Demon Deals, Future Fic, Impending Death, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Hale Family (Teen Wolf) Lives, after being resurrected anyway, no spn characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-10 19:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17432132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/operationhades/pseuds/operationhades
Summary: Stiles accidentally brings the Hale family back to life. Except now he only has a year to live.STEREK, no SPN characters, just a demon and a deal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> microsoft word says this fic was created in 2013. that's... a damn long time for it to be sitting on my harddrive collecting dust, so both [dakhtar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dakhtar/works) and I have agreed to purge our harddrives from old stuff like this, rather than just have it lying around making us feel like shit, lmao. This particular fic is 4 chapters long so far (i.e wip), at about 30k, from what I can tell. And it's old as cheeseballs, so writing style is going to be _way_ different. enjoyyyyy.

“ _What the hell did you do!?_ ”

“I–I don't– I don't– I don't _know_.” Stiles stammered, staring wide eyed at the number of people milling around the Hale house, watching him back. “I don't _know,_ okay!?” He flailed, panic gripping him tight at the sight of Laura Hale, perfectly alive and healthy and covered in dirt, crying over an older couple that held her back just as tight.

Derek snarled, eyes flashing red as he tightened his hold on the collar of Stiles' shirt, pushing and shoving him backwards until they were at the main road, far away from the remains of his house. He looked wide eyed, broken – _vulnerable_ – under the harsh glare of the noon sun, constantly looking over his shoulder as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, as if he couldn't _let himself_ believe what he was seeing.

Stiles knew the feeling. He couldn't believe it himself.

“Stiles, this–this _doesn't make sense_. They–they, all of them, even _Laura_ –holy shit, Stiles.”

His heart thudded in his chest, his lungs struggled to retain air, and Derek pulled him closer, fingers scrambling loose from Stiles' collar to clasp around Stiles' neck, thumbing the pulse there and letting loose a rattling breath. Derek's shoulders slumped as Stiles tried to keep breathing, tried to grapple down the ethereal grip of a panic attack, tried to stay anchored to the here and now by the skin to skin contact at his neck. It must have worked, because soon he was breathing properly, a deep breath in, a deep breath out, keeping in time to the thumb running circles on his pulse, to the fact that Derek – the very last of the Hale's – wasn't freaking out, despite now obviously _not_ being the very last of his family.

“ _Stiles,_ ” Derek pleaded, the tone sounding _wrong, wrong, wrong,_ on him. “You came here driving like you knew that they–” he choked, struggling to find the word, abandoning it in favour of repeating his very first question, “What did you _do_?”

A horribly nervous laugh escaped Stiles, unstable in the multiple octaves it hit, and he scrambled to get his hands on Derek, just for something to hold, because his feet felt like they were standing on air and his stomach was lurching and there was a horrible, _horrible_ , feeling that he'd screwed up. Horribly.

“I don't know,” he repeated himself, truthfully, trying to swallow down the thick lump stuck in his throat. “but I think it's bad.”

. . .

The thing is, after Peter Hale, the Argent's, Jackson, and the alphas, Stiles figured if anything was going to happen, it was going to happen violently. He wasn't stupid enough to think this was it, Beacon Hills was going to be peaceful from here on out, say hello to the golden days, no. But he figured if nothing else, whatever new thing that came would come in such a fit of BREAKING NEWS that he wouldn't need to worry about... subtle stuff.

Like a conversation.

The man that sat next to him on the bench looked somewhere in his twenties, fashionable in his tastes of clothing, handsome in a supermodel Jackson-esque way, but just that – a man. There was nothing suspicious about him, or the way he'd greeted Stiles with a normal, “Nice day, isn't it?” that all strangers lobbied at each other out of politeness, and because of it, Stiles felt nothing more than the usual paranoia that came from being the Sheriff's son – aka, none of his recently gained supernatural spider senses were tingling. At all.

Allison came careening out of the school, waving at him happily as she climbed into her car, and Stiles waved back because they were _friends_ , okay. There could only ever be so many messages of undying love you could carry between two people and still not consider yourself their friend. At least, Stiles figured that was when their friendship became something solid. Or it could have easily been somewhere along the way of realising they were the only humans in a werewolf pack. Did it really matter, anyway?

“Girlfriend?” The guy sitting next to him asked, nodding his head at Allison's disappearing car with a grin.

Stiles immediately shook his head, a loud snort escaping him before he could hold it back, because fine, maybe to him the notion of a girlfriend (or boyfriend, for that matter) was hilarious, but way to make yourself sound pathetic to complete strangers, Stilinski. “No, no. Best friend's girlfriend, though.” A best friend who was freaking late because he had to speak to the new headmaster about his failing grades.

“Ah,” the guy said, nodding his head in sympathy. “Lucky guy, I guess. What about you, no girls?” A pause, then, “Or guys, I guess. Not that there's anything wrong with guys.”

Shaking his head, Stiles let his right foot start up a rhythm of tap, tap, tap, wondering at his horrible luck to land a stranger that liked to _talk_ on the one day Scott was taking ages to come out. How long did it even take to talk about grades? They were in March, for god's sake. “Naah,” play it cool, Stilinski. “Don't have time for any of that. Too busy staying alive-” crap, crap, crap, too truthful, “- _ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive!_ Get it? Yeah, that, ha ha... And highschool is difficult enough as it is without adding on romance.”

He held his breath as the guy mulled his answer over, and only let it burst out of him in a cough when the guy accepted it with a nod. “Wise words for a kid. You must have boys and girls throwing themselves at you every day.” Hah, Stiles thought with a mental snort, not unless they were monsters trying to eat him alive. “Unless there's already someone else you've got in mind.”

His first thought went to Lydia, and then he remembered the whole kanima thing and the fact that she and Jackson were as inseparable now as Allison and Scott, and then, confusingly, his mind went to Derek, of all people. Maybe it was because Derek – aside from Stiles and Isaac – was the only one who wasn't attached. Isaac had this adorable crush on Danny, of all people, and Stiles was _Stiles_ , so it made sense that he'd think of Derek. Not that Stiles had Derek in mind, oh definitely not, because Derek was even more unattainable than Lydia could ever make herself to be, even if Derek was finally confident in his role as Alpha and had all but cemented the pack as a real thing. A real thing that included puppy piles and far too much touching and Stiles (being the only unattached human) being an open market for all the werewolves to paw at.

Even if, especially as of late, Derek had been taking all that open market for himself. With only 38% of the time including a vertical surface.

“Nope,” Stiles quickly answered, maybe a bit too quickly by the twist of the stranger's lips, “definitely got no one in mind. Bigger things to think about. Like exams. Yeah, exams. And _graduating_. And maybe getting the coach to let me actually play again.”

“If only life was more simple, right?” The man continued on as if Stiles had never spoken. “If only we could make _one wish_ and have it come true, right? Even if they have a price, and they always do. You just have to make that wish worth it, don't you think?”

Both his feet were tapping against the floor now, tap, tap, tap, his knees bouncing with the movement, his fingers drumming against his thighs. The man wasn't facing him, looking at the hoard of teenagers spilling out of the school, calmly sitting still with nothing but his profile visible, the dark colour of his eyes momentarily enveloping everything before disappearing again – an optical illusion, Stiles' brain was known for adding scary details to situations that were already scary enough. Not that this was scary, this conversation with a random dude sitting on a bench outside Beacon High, because sometimes humans were just weird like that, and Stiles was the Sheriff's son, which pretty much was a bright neon sign on top of his head saying _approachable_. People always stopped him at random times to make conversation with him, to insert themselves into his life and give him advice and pat his cheek and give him discounts on cucumbers.

“If you're going to pay for something, it should always be worth it,” Stiles agreed amiably, nodding his head as he thought about all the stories he'd read with the basic motto of be careful what you wish for. The only genie he knew of that was even _remotely_ good was the blue one in Aladdin. Speaking of which, Stiles was _so_ prepared to meet the Jasmine to his Aladdin, like _right now_. “Like world peace. World peace would be a good wish. Though it could get twisted into a totalitarian utopia where no free will exists.” He'd seen that happen in a web-comic. It was horrible.

“That's genies,” the man snorted, lips twisted again in humour. “They're not the only ones that grant wishes. And wishes don't really have prices anyway, I'm talking about _deals,_ here.”

Oh, this was good, Stiles never got a chance to 'talk shop' with someone before. Sitting up in his bench, Stiles turned to face the guy and was surprised to see clear grey eyes looking back at him, sure the man had dark eyes rather than the extremely light shade that they turned out to be. Must have been the sun, then. “Dude, you mean like _satanic_ deals? Like making a deal with the devil? A contract?”

The guy twisted to face him too, nodding enthusiastically, as if he too was happy to be speaking awesome with a fellow awesome-er. What? That totally was a word okay. The world just hadn't recognised it yet. “Yeah, a demon deal. It's only really a contract until the exchange is made, but way I see it, that's way better then the genies anyway, since the deal doesn't mess with your wish.”

“Well d'uh,” Stiles responded. “Of course they don't, they get to take your _soul_ at the end of it, and what's worth selling your soul anyway?”

“Oh, I don't know,” blonde haired man said, twirling the douchebag scarf lying around his neck. Normally, Stiles would be judging the guy for it, and he'd be judging him hard, but the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover' came to mind. “A loved one? I like the idea of selling your soul for someone you love.”

“And have them hate you for it when they come back and realise you'll die?”

The guy shrugged, unbothered. “I'd rather have them hate me then be _dead_. Especially if they deserve it more than me, if they impacted everybody's life around me more than me. How about fame then? Love? Power? All good things to pay the price for.”

“All _dumb_ things to pay the price for,” Stiles argued, waving at Erica and Boyd dragging a whining Isaac away from a confused looking Danny. “Fame you can get easily enough, and it comes and goes like seasons, love is a bit more difficult, but not impossible, and power just requires hard work and a shit ton of luck.” But his mind was stuck at the part before, about _deserving_ , and who was damaged enough to think somebody else deserved to live more than them?

Stiles was, because frankly, his mother was an angel in a shitty disguise. But no way would he get rid of himself and let her and dad grieve over him. He couldn't bear the idea of being the reason for them hurting. But Derek could. Derek would give himself over in a heartbeat if the devil gave him the chance, would roll over and commit _suppuku_ if it would get his family back, because to him he didn't deserve being the last one left. He blamed himself for his family, for Laura, for _Peter_. Blamed himself for Scott, for every time Stiles got hurt, for every lie Stiles had to give his dad just to keep the secret alive. Derek would probably take the deal and _run_ with it. And Stiles wouldn't blame him if he did.

“Maybe... Maybe if it was something huge, like your whole family or something dying. Like _loads_ of people you consider family dying. _Then_ maybe I could see the deal being worth it. Sort of.” Finally! He could see Scott coming out of the school with Lydia and Jackson, expression set to his default confusion until he spotted Stiles and brightened up. Lydia and Jackson both suspiciously eyed the man sitting next to Stiles, which admittedly might be weird to them, though Scott knew by now about the town-wide consensus that was Stiles-Stilinski-Is-The-Town's-Collective-Son.

“So will _you_ do it? For a huge family? Will you make a deal and sell your soul?”

Attention turning back to the man, Stiles shrugged and nodded at the same time, mind caught up on the wrong tense use before he mentally shrugged and moved on. “Yeah, probably.” He said, thinking about the Hale family, about how a lot of problems would've been solved if the fire itself had never happened. Peter, for one, probably wouldn't have gone psycho. Selling your soul for a big ass family like that seemed a lot more worthwhile than just selling your soul for one person, even if that one person was his mom, who would forever be in the centre of Stiles' heart. “Definitely.”

The wide, bright, smile that stretched across the man's face looked out of context, too bright, too _wide_ , too happy, but Stiles' body automatically returned the smile with something far more awkward. What he didn't expect was for the guy to grab him by the shoulders, pull him up as he himself stood, and– okay, wow, the guy was seriously _tall_ –

Hold up. Lips.

On his.

And was that _tongue_?

Belatedly, Stiles realised he didn't have to stand here and take it. Belatedly, he realised he could shove the man off him, which he did, palming the man's pectorals before adding enough strength to dislodge him from his mouth. The man didn't so much as stumble as simply take a step back, still smiling widely, except there was a– wrong, cruel, _wrong_ –

Jackson whistled, startling Stiles enough to make him jump, and Lydia had an impressed look about her as she watched the man walk away, calm as fuck, and Scott– Scott looked shocked, confused, but mostly shocked.

“Hate to say it, but I'm impressed, Stilinski,” Jackson drawled, a single arm over Lydia, keeping her close. “He didn't look half bad.”

He could feel the hot warmth of a flush covering his skin, could feel it wash away the pinpricks of unease the man had left behind on his skin, and waved his arms to try and dispel some of the heavy feeling sitting in his gut. The word _bad_ settled deep in his lungs, synonyms bouncing in his head as the conversation he'd just had looped over and over again, and before he knew it he was sitting in his Jeep with the engine running. “Yeah, okay, great,” he was saying, mouth running a mile a minute despite his brain being elsewhere. “Look, can you give Scott a ride? I have to go somewhere, do things, important things, Stiles things, you know what I mean.” He didn't give any of them a chance to respond, instead carrying on with a strained, enthusiastic, “You can? Great! Awesome! Way to go, Jackson – always knew there was a reason why we didn't kill you. Bye!”

His car lurched forward, easily navigating the mostly empty parking lot, hitting the highway and angling the Jeep towards the Hale house with practised ease. He was just going to go see, just check out the renovated house, maybe scoop about a bit, annoy Derek some more with highly important questions the Alpha wouldn't answer, then go home. Just to settle down his nerves a little, get some fresh air in the admittedly amazing forest, forget the conversation he'd just had about demons and deals and wishes. And if the pack was there, then engage in some fun rolling around in the dirt, cook Isaac his favourite pasta with the oregano sauce, fail at lacrosse practice with Boyd, let Erica dominate him with her need for control, have a good time and go back home satisfied and exhausted enough to sleep through the whole night.

Everything was going to be okay.

Except, as his Jeep drove the path to the visible Hale house, as he saw the people milling around looking shocked and confused, as he saw Derek in the centre wide-eyed and panicked, Stiles knew that nothing was okay.

This was bad.

. . .

_“I don't know,” he repeated himself, truthfully, trying to swallow down the thick lump stuck in his throat. “but I think it's bad."_

. . .

All in all, there were eleven people: three children under the age of ten, two under the legal age of California (which was, unfortunately, eighteen), and six adults. Eleven people, ten of which had the last memories of burning to death by fire and were now busy exclaiming over just how much Derek had grown, asking what had happened, what was going on, and one (Laura), gripping the sleeve of her brother's leather jacket and looking ill as she stared at her family, the exact same expression on Derek's face.

The resemblance between the two was uncanny. Stiles hated himself a little for even noticing it.

“I was out patrolling the woods,” Derek told him quietly, voice low enough only him and Laura could hear as they stood away from the large group of people. “Looking for anything strange, making sure nothing strange was making home here, and all of a sudden the whole forest stank of rotten eggs. I came back to the house where it was the strongest, found Laura trying to dig herself out of her grave, then the rest just... walked out of the house like nothing was wrong.”

Nodding, Stiles stared at the Hale pack, taking note of the old couple Laura had been hugging, the old couple Derek couldn't stop himself from glancing at over and over again. They weren't that old, maybe in their late forties, healthy and strong from the way they ordered everybody to stop panicking. The woman's eyes flashed red – Alpha – bringing a few of the children to a stop, the husband's eyes burning blue right beside her. Laura made a wounded noise at the back of her throat, something that made Derek reply with a rumble, all instinctive wolf Stiles couldn't hope to understand or be a part of, but he'd brought this on everybody, was the reason this was happening in the first place, so he had to stay and try and make the best of a bad situation.

Bad for him, anyway. If the _price_ of this hadn't been hanging over Stiles' head, he would've considered this a miracle. A _good_ thing. A _joyous_ thing.

He glanced back at Derek's parents, only to find Mama Hale staring right at him, eyes still red, a carefully schooled expression on her face as she watched him shuffle closer to Derek, shivering a bit under her stare.

“You're the only one she doesn't recognise,” came the explanation, Derek eyeing his mother back before averting his gaze – submissive, deferring to her rank and experience and _age_ , most likely. “She knows something is wrong, that me and Laura shouldn't be this old, that the house shouldn't be different. You're the only unknown factor here.” It looked like it pained him to speak, each word struggling to come out of him, but nevertheless he continued. “She won't hurt you, though. Nobody will hurt you. You smell like me.”

Laura's nostrils flared at that, her chest rising as she inhaled deeply, and nodded once with a pained look. “You do. It's the only reason why none of us have attacked you yet. Who are you?”

Swallowing thickly, Stiles couldn't help but look to Derek first, so far out of his realm here that he actually waited for permission before speaking. “Stiles,” he finally answered at Derek's nod. “Stilinski. I'm the sheriff's kid.”

His admission momentarily took Laura by surprise, the wrecked expression on her face disappearing for raised eyebrows and a curious look. Suddenly, she looked ten years younger, lighter, beautiful – even with a bit of dirt rolling off her hair and her clothes completely stained brown. “The sheriff's kid?” She asked, voice at normal levels of a conversation as she turned her curiosity to her brother. “Since when did you make friends with the sheriff's kid?”

A good handful of the people making up the Hale pack looked up, zeroing in on Derek at Laura's words, and Stiles realised all of them must have been werewolves. He figured Derek would tell them that they weren't friends, that Stiles was just pack, and even then, maybe just growl and not answer but skip to something else entirely. Instead, Derek surprised him by saying, “About two years ago.” which... was probably around the time Laura had died, actually.

Wow. Derek considered them friends.

Stiles bit the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling.

The scowl Derek directed at him probably meant Stiles wasn't doing such a good job of hiding his reaction anyway, but oh well, he needed something good to try and keep himself from hyperventilating right in front of Derek's _extended_ family. Derek's _pack_. Did that mean Isaac and the others weren't pack anymore? Or were they just part of a bigger pack now? Stiles wondered how it would work out, since the wife of the old couple was an Alpha too – Derek's mom, it had to be. Probably anyway, Stiles was just guessing here. She was a bit scary looking, actually. Like Victoria Argent except without the _crazy_ factor. Derek obviously hadn't lost his own Alpha-ness, not with the way his eyes had flashed red when Stiles had first arrived, so maybe he was still Alpha of his own pack, but then that meant there were two werewolf packs in Beacon Hills. Sharing the same territory. Sharing the same... house.

Stiles bit the flesh of his bottom lip, worried it between his teeth. He'd really screwed up this time. And that's only if this was because of him _in the first place_. He was still hoping this was some other weird crap, and that it had nothing to do with him.

“I have to explain what happened.” Derek interrupted his thoughts, stepping away from Stiles towards his family. “Go home, Stiles.”

“But what're you going to even say?” Stiles blurted, hand flailing to grab at the back of Derek's jacket. “And no _way_ am I leaving after this. Not unless you at least call the others or something.”

Immediately, Derek started shaking his head. “They'd only make things worse. Go _home_ , Stiles.” Digging his feet into the earth, Stiles stubbornly stayed still. Sighing, Derek gave up and moved towards his parents, dragging his feet the way naughty children all over the world did. Laura shifted to stand beside Stiles, her shoulder bumping into Stiles' own, and he dimly realised he was maybe an inch taller than her or so. From his place, he couldn't hear anything Derek or the couple were saying, neither could he read lips, but it was obvious Laura could.

“What's he telling them?”

Laura - and seriously, how weird was that? - shrugged a single shoulder, light eyes trained on the trio even as she replied. “He doesn't have to start from the beginning. I explained a little bit here and there, so he's just confirming it. I don't think he'll tell them about what happened to me. It... would be too much.”

Before Stiles could respond (what do you even _say_ to that, anyway?), she gripped his shoulder and steered him backwards a few paces until they lingered at the tree line leading into the forest, still in view of everyone but further away. Laura manoeuvred them so that her back was to the rest, hiding Stiles with her body, and her eyes glowed a fierce amber as she gritted the next words out between her teeth. “I remember everything until _that_ point, and it doesn't include my little brother being an alpha or friends with the sheriff's kid. What the _hell_ happened?”

Swallowing thickly, Stiles stuffed his hands in his hoodie and played with a loose thread inside, mind going a mile a minute as he tried to figure out how to answer her. “Uuh, exactly what do you remember?” _Do you remember Peter?_

“I remember my uncle, who was in a _coma_ , cutting me in half and leaving me for dead.” Laura replied bluntly, amber eyes still glowing intensely. “I remember dying. I _know_ I died. So quit with the stalling and tell me everything.”

“Maybe it'd be better if you got Derek to–“

“– _Tell me_.” She growled, momentarily baring her fangs at him before grabbing control of herself again.

Stiles awkwardly cleared his throat, realising with a start that she'd moved them just out of a werewolves range of hearing, and took a moment to look over her shoulder at where Derek was deep in discussion with his parents. Mrs Hale glanced up at him, making eye contact for a split moment before she turned her attention back to her son, effectively dismissing him. Mr Hale seemed more patient, staring straight at Stiles for a good long second before doing the same. Seriously, the Hale family? Fucking creepy.

Laura made a growly sound, impatient, and Stiles immediately held up his palms in an act of surrender. “Okay, okay, _fine_. So you know Peter killed you, right?” He didn't wait for her to nod before carrying on, because of course she knew, she'd just said so. “Yeah well, he did it so he could take your alpha-ness for himself because he wanted to go on a revenge spree of everybody that was responsible for the fire. He wanted a pack too, to make himself stronger or something, so he bit my best friend Scott and turned him.” Might as well verbally prepare her for the current Hale pack, just in case Scott came blubbering through the forest and loudly freaked out at all the werewolves. Hopefully, Derek would be doing the same with his parents. “Derek came the next day, I'm guessing, searching for you, but you were already dead. He found out and realised somebody else had become the alpha, and then there was Scott, who was new at _everything_ and sucked big time, so Derek had to stay around and deal with the mess.”

“He stayed to avenge me.” Laura summarised, and why was Stiles even surprised at her bluntness? Come on, Derek was the exact same way. “So what about you? You're not a werewolf. How did you get caught up in this?”

“Besides the fact that Scott is my best friend? Not many other reasons, actually. I tried helping him out with the wolfiness, and Derek tried too, but then Peter went ahead and carried on killing people, which caught the Argent's attention.” Another subsonic wolfy sound rumbled out of Laura, and goose bumps broke out on Stiles' flesh. “Yeah, yeah, hunters, big deal, I know. So the hunters thought Derek might have something to do with it, since he suspiciously came around the same time all of this started happening. And long story short, Peter got his revenge, Derek killed Peter – became an alpha – and here we are.”

After a pregnant pause, Laura said, “And he couldn't kill you to keep you quiet because you're the sheriff's kid. Makes sense.”

“Wait, what?”

She didn't pay attention to him, tapping a finger at her chin as she carried on. “So uncle Peter's dead, which is sad, but inevitable since he _did_ kill me, and Derek's the alpha now with this Scott as his pack.”

“Why would Derek kill-- wait, you know what? I don't even _want_ to know. And FYI, Scott isn't his only pack. There's like, five more. And three humans. One of them being me.” Stiles pointed at himself, index finger in his own face. “Really helpful. Me, that is. Useful. So please don't kill me.”

Laura grinned at him, showing far too much teeth, but settled down somewhat. “Sorry,” she said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “It's just... really freaking scary. The last time I spoke to Derek he was... He's better now, anyway. _Really_ better.”

The last time she'd spoken to Derek would've been before Kate died, which would've been while Derek was still Broody McBroodypants. So yeah, of course he was different. “Kinda hard to stay perpetually guilty over everything after a homicidal uncle, a kanima, a buncha alphas and _witches_ , dude.” Laura's eyes widened, which, yeah, shit, he shouldn't have mentioned that. “Aaaand, maybe we should leave that for another time, yeah? Great.”

She frowned at him, rubbing her hands together to get rid of some of the dirt still clinging to them. “You're the reason why we're all suddenly alive, aren't you?”

Stiles pointedly didn't answer that. Anything he'd say would be a lie, anyway. Probably.

Laura took a step towards him, Stiles took a step back, but her arms came up to wrap around his shoulder and _tug_ him towards her. He fell onto her, chin on her shoulder, chest to chest, suddenly caught up in what was undeniably a hug, and felt her squeeze him within her arms. “I don't know what happened, or why you did it, but whatever it was, thank you.”

Mouth open, brain momentarily fried, Stiles blinked wide eyes and hesitantly patted her on the back, dimly noting Derek and his parents looking back at them. Mrs Hale _definitely_ looked amused, whereas Mr Hale was frowning hard in disapproval, and Derek just looked _highly uncomfortable_. “Uuuh...”

Laura let him go, stepping back and giving him some semblance of a personal space, and smiled painstakingly bright at him as she grabbed his hand and started dragging him towards the Hale family. “Come on, let me introduce you to the family. Better I do it anyway – Derek would just shove you in there and leave you to the sharks.” She laughed at her own words, tugging harder at Stiles to make him hurry up as she reconsidered them. “Correction; leave you to the _wolves_.”

Maybe... he should have taken Derek's advice and gone home.

Too late for that now.

. . .

“Did you tell them about Laura?” Stiles asked, leaning on his Jeep as Derek jogged down the patio towards him. The dropping sun made the shadows darker, slanted Derek into harsh lines even as the warm orange glow made him softer.

Shaking his head, Derek answered, “No. We decided not to.”

Behind him, the fully rebuilt house was loud with noise, filled with a full family of two packs uniting as one. After being led on a tour of each face and name, Laura had demanded Derek call the others, and one by one, the teenagers had arrived. Stiles had sent a text to Allison telling her to stay home, promised to tell her what was going on the next day in school, but until they could figure out how the family would take to an Argent being part of the pack, it would be best if they didn't mention her. Laura was already suspicious about the missing human, and didn't seem to be looking forward to meeting her. Lydia... had not exactly given a good impression.

Stiles winced, mentally reassuring himself that it'd be okay. At least Mr Hale had seemed to like Lydia enough.

And Mr Hale was freaking _creepy_.

“Your dad's creepy, by the way.” Stiles announced, feeling it necessary Derek know just how creepy his dad was.

As a testament to just how used to Stiles he was, Derek didn't so much as blink as he cocked an eyebrow. “You thought my mother was creepy, at first.”

True. But then Mrs Hale and he had cooked a whole batch of cookies together and she was _awesome_. “Cookies, man. _Cookies._ ”

Derek didn't roll his eyes, but his eyebrows did. Roll, that is. Or do something close enough to resemble the act of rolling one's eyes. Derek's eyebrows were the most expressive feature of his face. Stiles knew this, everybody _but_ Jackson and Scott knew this, even Laura apparently knew this. Laura was awesome too. Scary as fuck, but awesome. Derek huffed, shaking his head as he finally came to a stop in front of Stiles. “You need to tell me what happened.” He said.

Which, right. He hadn't exactly told Derek what had happened, had he? “I don't really know exactly _what_ happened, or why, but I was just talking to some guy and it got really weird towards the end.”

“How weird?” Derek shot back, flexing his shoulders in agitation. “And who was he?”

Shrugging, Stiles responded carefully, picking his words for the least daunting sentences he could make. “I don't know who he was, which isn't too weird. A lot of people talk to me simply because I'm the sheriff's kid. And we were just talking about wishes, which went to deals, and about what sort of reason would be good enough to make a deal in the first place.”

“A _deal_? What sort of deal?”

“The deal where you ask for something and have to pay up something in return, I guess.” Careful wording, Stiles. Don't mention the word 'devil', Stiles. Why the hell do you get yourself into these messes, Stiles? “I'm sure it's nothing _that_ bad. Maybe the guy just really liked me and decided to bless us, or something. If werewolves and witches and magic exists, then why not, I don't know, miracles? Am I right or am I right?”

Derek _growled_ , and that was his ' _I. Am. Pissed_.' growl. Stiles opened the door to his Jeep and slithered in as subtly as he could, which wasn't subtle at all but sort of snake-like. “I'll, uh, talk to Deaton when he comes back from wherever the hell he went, see if he might know anything. You should go back in there before any of the puppies mention something stupid. Like Peter.”

Derek's growl ratcheted up a knot, more exasperated now than angry, but he pinned Stiles still with a look. “I'm coming with you to Deaton. Go straight home, Stiles.”

“Gotcha.” Stiles saluted, wincing as he hit his forehead too hard. “Dude, I am going to break _laws_ getting to my house. Don't you worry about little ol' me.”

“I'm serious, Stiles. None of this can be good.”

“Miracles, Derek.” Stiles responded, turning the engine on and shifting the gear to reverse. “Miracles!”

He peeled out of the driveway, pulling a quick shift change and spinning until he was facing the right direction, and with an obnoxious wink and wave, started driving down the pathway to the main road. In the rear view mirror, he could see Derek growing smaller, still standing in the same place until he was but a dot and then gone, and the highway came to greet him soon after, leading him the way home.

Stiles didn't know how he felt about miracles, if he believed in them or not. But if werewolves and witches and magic _did_ exist, then... maybe it wasn't so bad.

Right?

. . .

_“So will you do it? For a huge family? Will you make a deal and sell your soul?”_

_“Yeah, probably... Definitely.”_

. . . 

“So, dad,” Stiles started, swaying on the balls of his feet.

An eyebrow rose up at him in response, but the Sheriff didn't even deem to give him more than a passing glance as he said, “Smooth opening, son. So what is it now?”

The papers scattered across the kitchen table looked unworthy of being rifled through, some low grade petty crimes and big headache paperwork, but Stiles gave them complete and utter focus as he struggled on how to get from this conversation, to a whole other conversation _that was not this_. “Um, well, see...”

“Is it more werewolves?” His dad sighed in exasperation, putting his pen down and finally looking up. “Because if it is, I will personally hunt them down and kindly ask them to get the hell out of my town. Do I need to have that talk with Derek again? Do I need to remind him how this is _my territory_ and he's here out of the kindness of my heart? Do I?”

“No, no, no!” Stiles was quick to respond, holding up his hands in the universal sign of peace. “Nothing like that, though did you really tell him that? Seriously?”

The Sheriff nodded, looking distinctly pleased at the memory as he said, “Yup. Cornered him in the grocery store with a bouquet of _wolfsbane_ in my hand. I'm pretty sure I got the message across.”

The bark of surprised laughter that burst out of him was completely necessary, because his dad was a badass and deserved all the _awards_ , and Stiles was suddenly reminded of the fact that this was his _dad_ , and he should've told him about everything right from the day Scott got bitten. “It's not werewolves dad, or at least, not rivalling werewolves. Um, you know how the Hale fire killed pretty much everybody? And how Laura got killed by Peter?”

Suspicious dark eyes bore into him as his dad dryly retorted, “No, son, really? I had no clue,” before nodding anyway.

“ _Well_ ,” Stiles let the word roll of his tongue, “they're not dead anymore.”

The three full minutes his dad took to digest that piece of information was testament to how much bullshit Stiles had given him over the year (in pretty much the same conversation, over and over again, _“Well, a bunch of witches want me for their virgin sacrifice ritual so it'd be kinda great if you didn't make me go school for like, however long it took for the pack to find and get rid of them.”_ ), and when it seemed that the information had well and truly been digested, John heaved an exasperated sigh and raised _both_ eyebrows this time. “Really, son? _Really_?”

“Yup!” Stiles happily replied, deciding right then and there not to mention his own involvement in the miraculous revival of the Hale pack. “This time it's good news, right? Right?”

John dragged a hand across his face, shoulders slumping even as he nodded. “Of course it is, kiddo. Save for the fact that _life and death_ are generally things one tries not to mess with. There's a bad side to this, so just get to it and tell me what it is.”

There probably was a bad side to it – sooner or later, the other shoe was going to drop, and when it did, the effect would be akin to ripples on a pond – but whatever it was, Stiles didn't know. (He ignored the little voice in his head that quipped ' _deal or no deal?'_ )

“No clue,” was what came out of his mouth instead. “They just popped up out of nowhere, most of them only remembering the fire, Laura only remembering till the moment she died, and so far nothing's happened. I kinda just want it to be _good_ , y'know? Because Derek could really use something great happening once in a while.”

“Yeah,” his dad agreed, nodding growing more confident as the seconds ticked on. “Yeah, of course. You're right, we'll just take it as a good thing, and when the other shoe drops, we'll deal with it then.” A glance at the clock had a grimace appearing on his dad's face, and Stiles looked at it himself to see that his time was up. His dad's shift would be starting in twenty minutes. “Crap, I need to go. Scott's going to come visit, right?” At Stiles nod, John gave a soft smile and squeezed his son's shoulder. “Okay, make sure you both do your homework, alright? And I'll go to the Hale house after my shift and introduce myself, get that out of the way and see how Derek's handling it.”

“You mean you're going to go there and treat him like a kid for a bit just to make yourself feel good, right?”

John smirked, a wholly mischievous look alighting in his eyes as holstered his gun. “Somebody needs to keep him on his feet. And he likes it, so don't you go putting it all on me. I don't see him complaining.”

Probably because Derek – for some unknown reason – seemed to be scared shitless off his dad. Maybe because of the wolfsbane bouquet from hell? Stiles narrowed his eyes at his father but said nothing. Who knew; having the alpha wrapped around his dad's finger might turn out to be beneficial in the near (or far, far, _far_ ,) future.

“Bye dad!” Stiles waved from the door instead, watching his dad climb into his cruiser. “Don't order takeout! Sally's gonna give ya her grandma's legendary salad for lunch!”

Nobody would believe Stiles if anybody asked, but that was _definitely_ a middle finger. _Rude_ , dad, _rude_.

He didn't bother closing the door after the cruiser disappeared round a corner, instead leaning up on the door frame and watching as Scott turned up from the opposite side peddling like crazy on his bike. The tanned teen waved with a hand, keeping easy balance thanks to his amazing werewolf powers, and came skidding to a stop on the Stilinski drive way. “So how'd it go!?”

Grinning, Stiles answered, “Great. He's going to go after his shift and say hi.”

“Dude,” Scott breathed in awe (ever the little hero worshipper of his dad). “He didn't grill you like you personally made a deal with Satan? 'Cuz mom did. She grilled me _hard_. And I didn't even do anything!”

Covering the full body flinch at Scott's choice of words, Stiles coughed into his hand and spun on his foot, making his way grandly back into his home. “Nope!” He said too loudly, knowing for a fact Scott was following close on his heel. “He's gonna treat this like a good thing until something bad happens and deal with it then. Dude, your mom _always_ thinks the worst, it's like, a gift, or something.”

The very serious expression of complete and utter agreement on Scott's face looked more adorable than anything else, but Stiles decided to let Scott go ahead and keep thinking of himself as actually capable of pulling off serious expressions. Those faces were the best part of Stiles' days, okay? So what if he was selfish enough to keep them?

“So how'd meeting with the Hale's go anyway?”

Hopping onto one of the chairs around the kitchen, Scott leaned on the table and launched into an enthusiastic tale of meeting the pack, confirming that yes, Stiles, he hadn't mentioned anything fucked up like the _truth_ , no, Stiles, they don't know about Peter, Laura lost the alpha rank after she and Derek joined another pack in New York, and _dude_ , Stiles, calm down man, Scott got bitten by a rogue alpha werewolf wanting to make Beacon Hills his own until Derek killed him and became alpha, _duh_.

Stiles rewarded Scott for his good behaviour with food, and Scott happily ate at his sandwich.

“You should've totally seen Derek though,” Scott continued, mournfully looking down at his empty plate after finishing. “He was like, _way_ different with his family man. He's chill now, like _cool_ , and actually smiling and shit. He looks so weirdly _happy_ all the time, now.”

“No shit, Sherlock – he has his family back,” drawled Stiles, rolling his eyes as he slapped another sandwich on Scott's plate. But then the words really hit him, because shit, Scott was completely right, _Stiles_ was completely right, Derek had his _family_ back; and all because of that conversation (that _deal_ , a voice whispered patronisingly), and Scott just nodded as Stiles sat frozen on his seat, mentioned he was happy, and promptly left for a date with Allison.

For a while, Stiles stayed standing. Maybe ten minutes. Or twenty.

Then he climbed upstairs to his bedroom and did his homework.

. . .

Beacon Hills, after the shitstorm that had been the first few months of werewolfdom, had tapered off into only having the occasional supernatural crisis. The only really horrible thing that had happened since the alphas had been the harpies, but since then, the days had been slow and kind. That wasn't to say they were all safe, or people didn't turn up dead, or _hunters_ didn't turn up on their turf, but it rarely ever ended in actual blood and loss of limbs and father's thinking their son's dead or said son's drowning in a nearby lake. The only really horrible thing that had happened had been the harpies, and Stiles was happy with this.

News of the Hale family suddenly back alive and whole again travelled fast around town, but surprisingly there was very little hysterics to it, even if the Sheriff had helped the Hale's get back into the swing of things. The population of Beacon Hills were probably completely desensitised to everything by now – Jackson had been a higher profile citizen, and he'd died and mysteriously come back alive too – because for the next few days since the Hale resurrection, nothing happened. At all. Everything was absolutely fine.

The two packs somehow found a way to integrate together (Stiles was _burning_ with curiosity over that, he really was), werewolf psyche apparently made it not-that-big-a-deal for Derek to defer to his mother's rule, though he was her prodigy and heir by extension now, and the teenagers that made up Stiles' friendship circle seemed to absolutely _love it_. Stiles himself had somehow found himself just not having the time to go back, and when he _did_ have time, he found himself... not. Going back, that is. He liked to think it was because Mr Hale creeped him out (he was like an odd mix of Peter at his worst and Allison's father peppered with Allison's mother's _serial killer aura_ ).

The truth was, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

From the exasperated fond looks Scott kept giving him, the love-struck teen had obviously caught on, but the truth was, Stilinski's were pessimistic men. Their optimism had been a loud and bright woman who'd died half a decade ago, and she'd taken all chance of good thoughts along with her. Stiles didn't like to jinx things, but nevertheless, he didn't like to get his hopes up either. So he was just going to go about his life and hope nothing continued to keep happening.

He'd obviously forgotten one major point though: groceries. Or, to be more precise, the fact that the main shop everybody did their groceries at was public property and neutral ground and _of course_ the Hale's would need groceries right? So it made perfect sense that there would be a chance he'd run into one if he went to do groceries too. And that was something he didn't want, to run into a Hale. But the universe being the universe, Stiles ended up running into a Hale.

“Oh, you must be Stiles!”

Werewolves. Of course she knew who he'd be. She'd probably smelt him as soon as he'd entered or something. “Uh, yes! Hi! Hello! Hey!” Oh god, what was he _doing_? “Ola! Nǐ hǎo! Marhaban..! Hello...?”

Pale amused eyes regarded him with, well, amusement, and Stiles' words trailed off slowly into silence. The woman in front of him was tall, his height if nothing more, and beautiful in the way Jackson and Derek were beautiful, sharp edges and an even sharper gaze. She was undeniably a werewolf, and maybe it said something about Stiles that he could automatically pinpoint that out, but there you have it, he could; it was a neat trick anyway. But one thing that was different about her and throwing Stiles completely off his game was the wide, _happy_ , smile on her face, and the whole feel of... _Motherly_ -ness... on her.

Stiles usually only got bad, bad, _bad_ feelings off werewolves, yet here he was getting nothing.

“So...” Stiles tried, drumming up the manners that had been instilled in him since childhood. “It's nice to see you again, Mrs...”

“Emma,” _Emma_ supplied, “and really, I'm a miss! I don't look _that_ old, do I?”

Stiles felt his mouth move soundlessly before he got his act together and blurted out an obvious, “Of course you don't! You look young, _very young_ , wow, what cream do you use?”

Oh my _god_ , Stiles, _shut up_.

Luckily for him, Emma seemed to find his social awkwardness cute if the little chuckle she gave was any indication. She had a trolley in front of her loaded with supplies, most of which consisted of horrendous amount of meat (the _expensive_ kind), and equally horrendous (more like _wondrous_ ) amount of greens. Stiles goggled at the food, spotting three boxes of Lucky Charms hiding underneath some cabbages, and felt completely inept when he realised his own trolley had only six bags of pasta, two icebergs, and loads of oranges.

“So! How's everybody?” That seemed like a good question, right? Right?

She gave a small happy sigh, dark hair swept up on one shoulder to trail down to her waist. “We're good, settling in very nicely. Your father's a godsend, just like that cute little boy- oh, what was his name? The one with the computer skills?”

“Danny?” Stiles supplied helpfully, surreptitiously eyeing the bag of tofu behind her head. “Yup, he's totally cute-- _I mean_ , good with computers. Very good.”

Emma smiled widely at him, pale eyes not blinking once as she watched him intently. “He's not the only one, is he? _Oh_ , how handsome Derek's grown.”

“Absolu--” wait, _what_? Stiles dissolved into spluttering, eyes widening in shock at the near slip of his own mouth. He stuttered for a bit, searching for something to reply with (because what can you even _say_ to that?), when Emma laughed at his reaction and waved a hand at him dismissively.

“You've grown quite handsome too, I must say.”

Surprised into silence, Stiles blurted out, “You knew me?”

A nod was his answer, “Oh, definitely. I remember you as a... six year old, maybe? Running around all over the place, and your mother – wonderful person that she was – running right after you.”

Immediately, Stiles felt as if someone had upended a bucket of ice cold water on him, remembering with a start that his mom had died _before_ the Hale fire, meaning of course there would have been a slight chance the Hale's would have known her. Beacon Hills wasn't notoriously small, or an actual town (technically it was a city), but the law enforcement of the usually sleepy town were pretty much the only thing even remotely celebrity-like in the place. Everybody knew every deputy, cop, sheriff, and their wives (or partners) and children, and Stiles had thought he was done with having to stand still while people talked about his mom to his face. He thought he'd been done with it _five years ago_ , he didn't want to go through it again.

Somehow, he successfully moved the whole topic back to the Hale's and away from himself, listening for a few scant seconds before quickly coming up with an excuse that was _true_ (mostly anyway; lying by omission didn't ping on the heart radar, apparently), and made a quick escape. He had to park by the side of the road twice before he finally pulled up to his house, hands shaking too hard to keep a firm grip on the steering wheel, but make it home he did. And it was only as he was putting away what little groceries he'd bought that he realised with a pang he'd forgotten the tofu.

Oh well, veggie burgers it was, then.

. . .

Chewing on the end of his pen, Stiles stared at a spot on Sarah Adam’s blonde head in front of him as history class droned on, too busy trying to scrounge his memory for any Hale's he might have run into as a kid, or anything he might have heard of them. His head space was a mess though; all he could remember was his mom making grilled cheese, trying to teach him how to pick locks, promising to teach him how to hotwire a car as soon as he was tall enough to see over the steering wheel; and all it was doing was making him feel disconcerted, throwing him off his groove and making something itch and feel tight under his skin.

As a rule, he never liked thinking too much about his mom, tried to avoid anything that reminded him of her like the plague, because that way lay madness and grief, and he was already teetering on the edge as it was. In fact... if one were to think of the little 'deal' he'd made, he might be teetering on something far worse.

Scott elbowed him gently in the side, grabbing Stiles' wayward attention, and with nothing but his worried face asked, _“Dude, you okay?”_

Oh right. Werewolf nose; capable of smelling brewing panic from a mile away. Lips quirking slightly, Stiles nodded and raised his eyebrows in Mr Harris' direction, _“Totally. Just bored.”_

Grin tugging on his own lips, Scott nodded, about to express something cheeky from the mischievous glint in his eyes when something hit Stiles right in the head.

A paper ball; scrunched up to an inch of its life.

Confused, Stiles looked up at where the ball's trajectory had come from, immediately groaning when he saw Mr. Harris eyeing him with distaste as he fisted another paper and launched it through the air to land perfectly on Stiles' desk. There was some black ink peeking from a crumpled corner, and when Stiles smoothed it out, the one word written in stark black ink was the next to come out of Mr Harris' mouth.

“Detention, Stilinski.”

“But–”

“If I hear your voice, it'll be for the next month.”

The class teetered, nobody really bothering to feel sympathy for Stiles. But then again why would they? This was the usual fare for chemistry class – Stiles didn't need to be guilty of anything to get picked on – and nobody would give it a second thought. Even his dad had gotten used to Mr Harris' famous animosity towards the Stilinski men, and jeez, how was this guy even a teacher?

Throwing his hands in the air dramatically, Stiles looked at Scott for sympathy, getting it in the exaggerated wince and sorry little shrug Scott favoured, rolling his eyes at the lack of commiseration he'd been hoping for. Instead, he hunkered down into his seat, noticing Danny trying to catch his eye with a sympathetic smile, and felt somewhat better that at least _someone_ felt the world had (once more) wronged him. Pen in mouth, he chewed the end as Harris droned on about something, deciding to review it (more like learn it from scratch) later on at home in his own spare time. Google could find him a website that would explain everything far easier than Harris ever could anyway, and if push came to shove, he could always get his dad to tutor him on his day off.

The Sheriff, ladies and gentlemen; bona fide science geek.

The next thirty minutes passed by quietly, nothing interesting happening except for a few awkward stare downs from Harris. As soon as class ended, Stiles was out of his seat and the first out of there before the bell could even finish ringing. He bid Scott goodbye, rolling his eyes when the love-struck puppy trailed after a dimpling Allison, and went through his next classes pretty much ignoring everything but the little growly wolves he was trying (and failing) to doodle.

When the final bell of the day rang, he had to force himself to go back to the chemistry lab, entering the empty room with a sigh and dropping down into the seat he favoured for every detention. He didn't bother bringing out his homework, because Harris was a creature of Hell and refused to let Stiles do _anything_ in the hour he kept him there, which sucked because what other time was Stiles going to get to do them? Home was a synonym for Serious-Werewolf-Shit that usually had him running for his life rather than comfortably sitting on his desk answering question after mind boggling question.

And Harris always came late.

Bored out of his mind already, Stiles fired off a quick text to his dad with one word – _DETENTION –_ and quickly put it on mute. His left leg started bouncing underneath the desk, fingers tapping out a rhythm on the top as a few minutes passed by. The board was wiped clean – nothing to distract him from himself – and the desks clear. Ten minutes passed by, fifteen, eighteen, twenty.

Twenty five minutes and counting.

He tried holding his breath and using the clock up on the wall to count down the seconds, letting it explode out of him when he couldn't hold it in any longer. He tried tapping out the beats to some tunes, getting carried away and using the desk as his personal drum set, then ending it with a big flourish of arms thrown into the air and head thrown back – because Stiles was nothing if not capable of keeping himself amused. And apparently, keeping others amused.

The sound of sudden clapping had him _screaming_.

“Holy shit!” He shouted, clutching at his shirt near his chest. “Holy shit!”

Harris sat on his desk, hands still clapping, with a strange curl to his lips as Stiles panted to try and even out his heart rate. For the first time in Stiles' years of suffering through chemistry, there was nothing _bad_ about Harris' expression or body language – he looked loose, relaxed, even slightly pleased if one took the effort to look behind his reflective glasses – but something was _off_. He looked too loose, too relaxed, too in control of something when all they should be having here was detention, a detention they'd practiced to the point of perfecting it to an art form, so why was Stiles' mind ringing with warning bells? Why--

\--Why did he feel like he wanted to _run_?

Then the curl of Harris' lips widened, stretched into a toothy smile, too wide, to toothy – wrong, cruel, _wrong–_

And Harris' eyes blinked black.

_Shit._

“So those Hale's, huh?” Harris – or the thing either inside or pretending to be Harris – asked conversationally, cocking his head to the side with the ever present smile. “I have to say, bit difficult trying to get _their_ souls, what with half of them being _werewolves_. They're not usually in our jurisdiction, but thankfully things are a bit lax right now when it comes to these things.”

Stiles could have a _field day_ with just those few sentences, but he was too busy being, a) scared to death, and b) dreading _everything_ , to get into a conversation about souls and the afterlife. "What are you talking about?”

Harris' smile went small, more genuine, more frightening in the sheer _cruelty_ in them as he answered. “Don't worry. I'm only here on business. Y'know what they say, after all; the devil's in the details.”

Mind going a mile a minute, Stiles blinked innocently and said, “What details? The only business we have here is detention, _Mr Harris_.”

The cold laugh that drew in response had him shivering, but Stiles stayed strong as the _thing_ in Harris' body pushed up from the desk and sauntered towards him, stopping on the opposite side of Stiles' desk. He leaned in close, resting his elbows on the top, and took off his glasses, blinking once to let the black inside fade to Harris' usual steely grey. “Don't play coy, kid. We had a deal, and I've done my part.” Lightning fast, a hand struck out and fisted Stiles' collar, dragging him close over the desk's top until he was only inches away from Harris' face, the creatures eyes once more black. “I've done my part,” he repeated, smiling again, widely, showing off perfectly white teeth. “And now? Now it's time I tell you yours.”

Stiles responded with an emphatic, “ _Shit_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up on a weekend was supposed to be something sacred, something you could count on and look forward to no matter how bizarre your life had gotten. But there really wasn't much you could do when the voice of your dad insulting an alpha werewolf's stubble kept breaking into your amazing dreams. Dad was saying something about cave men, about Tarzan, and... milk?
> 
> Stiles should definitely get down there before something horrible happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a thing with harpies and fairies being constantly mentioned that past me had full knowledge off that present me _doesn't have the slightest clue about_ and it is greatly disturbing. that is all.

For the first time in his arguably short life, the internet was failing him. It was failing him _hard_.

Stiles punched the computer into hibernate, leaning back on his swivel chair as a jaw breaking yawn had him in near tears. A quick stretch of his body had satisfying cracks echoing around the dark bedroom, the neon numbers on his digital clock judging him for being awake at three in the morning. But desperate times called for desperate measures; and the most desperate of those measures had been Wikipedia.

Needless to say, Wikipedia had not delivered on his hopes for an easy solution.

The amount of information on demons went from the obviously satanic to the disconcertingly religious and all the way around the bend to just plain old crazy. None of it seemed even remotely verifiable, and the bestiary was still in a language that would take Stiles a _decade_ to fully translate without Lydia's help. While those in the know about werewolves had pretty much made up and played nice, what little relationship there had been between him and Lydia (and by extension, Jackson) had soured and crumbled to ash. He could get Danny to maybe ask her for him, or just ask Chris to tell him what he needed – a hunter should know about demons, right? Or would Chris know even less than he'd known about the kanima? Questions, questions. - But that ran the risk of both of them asking _why_ he wanted to know, and that was just a glittery sign _screaming_ a giant, big, no, thank you very much.

The neon numbers flipped, displaying a new time of half past three, and Stiles acutely felt the clock's ire with him grow. Grumbling to himself quietly with another yawn, he hefted himself out of his chair, ignoring the urge – the bright panicked urge – to go back and search _harder_ , and crawled underneath the covers of his bed. He was bone deep tired in the way that meant practically _sinking_ into the mattress, bone deep tired in the way that meant the blanket felt like a heavy weight of sheer delight on his body, and most of all, bone deep tired in the way that meant _he couldn't sleep_.

Add in the constant low key anxiety that had only gotten worse since Scott had been bitten, and it pretty much meant he was lying in bed at three in the morning trying to think of other sources he could search through, maybe even get into the physical part of it all, drive down to the closest largest university that had a theology professor (or whatever subject even _taught_ religious stuff like that) and actually _ask_. He could claim it was for a book, or for his own school papers, or a variety of other reasons. He could use a fake name and wear the type of clothes Jackson wore and maybe get some of the drag queens to help him with a wig; something that would make sure nobody would put two and two together and call his dad up with the creepy news his son was dabbling in the biblical sort of sorcery.

Hell, he could wear glasses.

And even if all the professors in the world told him everything they knew, Stiles was still doomed.

No. He wasn't. That was bullshit. He'd be fine. He'd gotten out of worse scrapes than this – werewolves! Harpies! Goddamn perverted fairies! He'd survived witches and their bid to use his virginity as a power booster, he'd survived _goddamn_ Peter fucking Hale, and he'd kept Scott (and Derek. And Erica, Isaac, and sometimes Boyd.) alive too. He just had to focus and stop panicking and breathe in deep and breathe it all out in a calm and logical manner and _holy jesus fuck he only had a–_

The hiss of the window sliding open had him _freezing_ , lungs paralyzed and heart rate kicking up a few notches and the flight or fight reflex kicking in and leaning way too much to the former – but it significantly dropped when it was only Derek that slid in. The alpha werewolf slithered in gracefully, red eyes flashing for a moment as he _verbally_ frowned all up in Stiles' direction, and the sheer ridiculousness of it helped further distract him from his thoughts. “Why are you panicking.”

Licking his suddenly dry lips, Stiles cleared his throat loudly and replied with a snooty, “I think you mean 'why are you panicking _?_ ' You know, _with a question mark_?” Before Derek could demand Stiles' answer him by butchering simple intonation, Stiles heaved himself up into a seated position and flailed his arms in Derek's general dark silhouette. “And why are you even here? Is everybody fine? Are the faeries back? Please tell me they’re not back because I swear to god I don't give a damn how badly they're hurting everybody I will go nowhere _near_ their touchy selves–”

“No, no,” Derek interrupted, speaking over Stiles' tirade with practiced ease. “No faeries. Shut up.”

Obligingly, Stiles shut up, happy with the mere diversion he'd known would work on Derek. You just had to make him exasperated enough to completely forget whatever he was asking in the first place and keep him on the main topic at hand, i.e. whatever he'd come for in the first place.

“Deaton's back,” Derek explained, walking in and making a circuit of what little space of the room he could. “We're going tomorrow.”

“Oh... kay.” Stiles answered lamely, eyebrows raised high incredulously.

Dimly, he wondered if he could ask Deaton for info, but immediately discarded it. The man was vague at best, and Stiles needed someone to tell him the gritty details in technicolour, and anyway, with Deaton, the cons outweighed the pros. He was helpful whenever he wanted to be, and usually in a Dumbledore-esque sort of fashion, which Stiles personally seriously hated, and he'd probably figure out what Stiles didn't want him or anybody else to know and just go and blab it to the whole town. Morrell was the same problem, plus she couldn't translate Latin for shit, so Stiles doubted he'd be able to actually believe any information that came out of her crazy ass counsellor’s mouth anyway.

Derek stared at him for a moment longer, face hidden in the darkness of the bedroom, then seemingly made the decision to leave. Just as he had a foot on the windowsill, ready to make a dramatic exit, he stopped and stared down at his hands. Curious as to what could stop him, Stiles looked down himself, and was shocked to find he'd – unconsciously – decided to grab a hold of Derek's sleeve.

Even more shocking was the words that blurted out of his mouth. “Are you okay?”

The window was open, letting in the light from the half-moon just enough to show Derek's eyebrows furrowing together in obvious confusion. Slowly, dragging out the word like _Stiles_ might be the one that might not be all there, Derek said, “Sure... Why?”

Suddenly feeling awkward, Stiles took his hand back and shoved it under his butt to prevent any other unwanted surprises. “Uh, cuz your whole family's suddenly alive? Seems like a lot to take in. So are you? Okay, that is.”

The sudden quiet that descended itched at Stiles' skin, a quiet buzzing that usually related to the days when focus was just another abstract concept; and all the while Derek stared at him. His eyebrows weren't furrowed anymore – they were firmly raised, telegraphing their surprise at Stiles' words, so much more expressive than Derek's own vocal cords could ever hope to be.

After what seemed like eons, Derek nodded slowly, eyebrows returning to their normal position of forever-constipated, and the alpha's gaze moved away for a moment, looking glazed as his lips curled just slightly. “I will be.” And then he nodded once more, as if confirming the words to himself, nodded again, this time in farewell, and jumped out of the window and into the night.

Dropping back onto the bed with a huff, Stiles stared at the open window, dread rolling in his stomach as his mom's laugh suddenly echoed in his ears. The curtains fluttered as a cooling breeze brew in, doing nothing to help the cloying sense of panic gripping his throat and announcing that the other shoe had fallen. Because how the hell was he supposed to find a way out, now? It would be hard enough saving himself in the first place, but making sure the Hale's stayed alive too? Impossible. How could he take that away from Derek? Stiles was– Stiles was a fan of ignoring things until they went away.

Yet somehow, he didn't think this would go away.

. . .

_“Don't play coy, kid. We had a deal, and I've done my part. And now? Now it's time I tell you yours.”_

_Stiles responded with an emphatic, “_ Shit. _”_

_Grinning, white teeth unusually sharp in Harris' mouth, the demon pulled Stiles closer and purred approvingly when Stiles' heart rate peaked at critical. “Look, I'll keep it simple. Usually, these kinda things get a ten year grace period until you have to cough up; that's the norm.” He said, words loose and relaxed, but no less dangerous. “But usually, I don't have to bust my balls trying to bring back a whole family – or, well,_ pack _, I guess, heh. And they're not even all werewolves, for fuck sake. Do you have any idea where I had to go to find some of them? You better be worth it, kid.”_

_Licking his suddenly dry lips, Stiles emphatically shook his head and croaked, “I'm not. I'm a horrible investment. You're better off just dropping me now, I swear–“_

_“–Shut up, kid.” Stiles' voice died instantly. “Better. So here's the lay low. Normally, I'd just take your soul right here and now; it'd be well within my rights to do so, but then again, what kinda demon has rights, y'know? But I'm a fan of letting people mull about for a while, so I'll give you a year. You can stay around and soak in the love or whatever the hell else you got going on for you here, and watch those freaks you sold your soul for smile and shit babies. Then, a year from now, you can go peacefully, or you cannot go gently into that good night, I really don't care.”_

_Lips moving, Stiles tried to talk, but his voice still refused to work. He wanted to speak, wanted to hear his own voice, wanted to ask why the hell a demon wanted a skinny little bag of bones like him anyway, but all he got was Harris smiling, wide and cruel, and the sound of him tutting disapprovingly._

_“You seem like a smart kid, creative, and surprisingly good at surviving; like a cockroach. We could use humans like you, god knows the usual brute force and pure evil isn't cutting it nowadays. But then again, I have a more... personal, if you will, interest in you. So I'll pop back in about a year, see how it all goes, and we'll go hopping to our new warm home, 'kay?”_

_The free hand grabbed Stiles' chin, forcing him to nod. Pleased, the demon let him go, moving back and getting to his feet._

_Patting at Harris' shirt, the demon winked at Stiles, eyes still an inky black. “I'll see you in a while then, sweetheart.”_

_Then– then– screaming, black smoke, Harris dropping, and the classroom suddenly going deathly still._

_Harris groaned._

_Stiles responded with an emphatic, “_ Shit. _”_

. . .

Waking up on a weekend was supposed to be something sacred, something you could count on and look forward to no matter how bizarre your life had gotten. But there really wasn't much you could do when the voice of your dad insulting an alpha werewolf's stubble kept breaking into your amazing dreams. Dad was saying something about cave men, about Tarzan, and... milk?

Stiles should definitely get down there before something _horrible_ happened.

Grumbling into his pillow, Stiles rolled towards the bedroom, yelping when he miscalculated the width of his bed and just dropped right off it and onto the floor. Letting himself rest for a moment, Stiles counted to ten before pushing himself up and towards the bathroom, suspiciously keeping an ear out on what little conversation he could hear taking place down below.

He finished brushing his teeth to the sound of dad questioning Derek's ratio of wolf to human. Apparently, it leaned far too much towards the wolf, and if it leaned any further, dad was going to have to get Derek neutered. For his own good.

Stiles almost choked on toothpaste.

“We're going to Deaton.” Derek greeted him with, glowering at the scrambled omelette dad placed in front of him as Stiles entered the kitchen. “Now.” Despite his words, he picked up a fork and dutifully started eating, and dad just seemed disgustingly pleased with himself.

Shuffling his own omelette onto a plate, Stiles collapsed onto a chair next to his dad and made a noise of acquiescence as he stuffed his mouth, moaning in delight at the burst of flavour no egg should ever have. They ate in silence for a bit, the only noise coming from dad puttering about getting ready to go for work, clipping his gun to his holster and yelling at them to come by the department for lunch. It was disgustingly domestic, something that had taken two years of non-stop gruel and action to get to, and Stiles wondered dimly how the hell he'd missed his dad going from wary of Derek to _pulling his pigtails_.

“ _So_ ,” he said carefully, tonguing his teeth to get rid of wayward egg. “Should I give you the you-hurt-her-and-you'll-regret-it speech? Or should I leave that to the fact that dad has a holster with a gun and knows how to use it?”

Unimpressed, Derek took a drink of his coffee – black, with far too much sugar, jeez – and shook his head a little. “He's treating me like he used to, before... before the fire.”

“Whoa, hold up, you two knew each other before the fire? Hell, he bullied you like a school bully before the fire? Isn't that like, child abuse?”

“Shut up, Stiles.” Derek sighed, finishing off his coffee and dropping that and the plate into the sink. “Laura always got me into trouble, and your dad was one of the younger officers back then. He always had to deal with it whenever we got caught. That's it.”

That's it, Stiles' _ass_. There was so much in those two sentences _alone_ that Stiles wanted to dig into, to unearth secrets and stories and memories, but the look on Derek's face had him hesitating. Before this –  this whole second coming of the Hale family thing or whatever – Derek would've only ever spoken of his family once in a blue moon, and only on pain of death (or, to be more correct, on pain of _somebody else's_ death, like Scott and his fail at being a wolf that would definitely get them all killed one day.) It couldn't have suddenly gotten easier overnight to speak about it for Derek, even if he now lived in a home full to the brim with every single one of the people he mourned, and Stiles may be a jackass, but he wasn't an asshole.

So he dropped it.

“Whatever. All that does is give me images of little you with a huge schoolboy crush on my dad, which, _ew_.” He retorted with, pushing himself up off the breakfast island and dumping his own plate and orange juice into the sink. “So Deaton's back?”

“Your dad _terrified_ me.” Derek argued, following as Stiles turned around and grabbed his jacket from the coat rack. “And yes, Deaton's back.”

Feeling slightly vindictive, Stiles grinned as he bent down to do his shoelaces up. “Correction, terrif _ies_. Present tense, grumpy, let's not kid ourselves, here.”

Derek shoved him as soon as Stiles was on his feet, making the teenager lose his balance and almost sprawl onto the floor. Spluttering in indignation, Stiles ran after Derek, trying desperately to straighten out his clothing and get himself to look presentable as he slid into the driver's seat of his jeep. The car stuttered out a hello as Stiles turned it on, somewhat smoothly backing out of the driveway and onto the road, pointing her in the direction of the vet's office. Stiles immediately started playing with the radio with a free hand, trying to get something out of it, and Derek – far too used to this after two years of knowing each other – let him at it with an irritated sigh and nothing more. It worked for both of them, because otherwise Stiles would talk and talk and talk and inevitably get Derek so pissed off he'd wolf out, or he'd fidget and fidget and fidget and inevitably get Derek so pissed off he'd – again – wolf out.

On his bad days, Stiles would go out of his way to see just how many times he could get Derek to shift before they reached wherever they were going. On his good days, he felt slightly remorseful. But only slightly.

It didn't take long to reach the veterinarian's office, even less to climb out of the car (or, in Stiles' case, trip over his feet and almost face plant on the tarmac) and through the front door. A little bell jingled as Stiles walked in after Derek, announcing their entry, and a few seconds later Deaton came in through the staff door, eyebrows already rising to his hairline on seeing them. Derek's shoulders went stiff as Stiles shifted awkwardly beside him, both of them immediately going on the defensive at the bland judgmental look being directed at them – because of course the only time Stiles and Derek, as a pair, visited Deaton together was when there was a _serious_ issue in Beacon Hills. Like the harpies.

Fucking harpies.

“Good morning,” the doctor greeted them benignly, indicating with his head that they should follow him. “How may I help you two?”

Trailing after the forever calm man, Stiles and Derek stood around the metal table in the middle of the back room, where a sad looking dog lay on his stomach. Deaton went about doing his job, hands swiftly but carefully moving over the forlorn dog as Stiles shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his jacket. Derek looked visibly uncomfortable as Deaton picked up the dog's tail, doing something back there that had the dog whining high in his throat. When no answer seemed to be coming from them, Deaton sighed heavily, looking at them with a frown, and said, “Alright, how bad is it?”

“Not bad!” Stiles immediately rushed with, wanting to get the whole tone of the conversation off to a _good_ start, a _wonderful_ start, a start filled to the brim with rainbows and puppies who weren't getting molested by Deaton's gloved hands. “You should ask how _good_ is it, because this is good news! We bring good news! Right, Derek?”

Still looking incredibly uncomfortable, Derek grunted, and after a moment actually nodded too. And then, because even after two years Derek still spoke like a caveman and had no _idea_ about the word 'subtlety', he helpfully added in, “My family's alive again.”

Deaton dropped the dog's tail in shock, staring at them wide eyed as Stiles face palmed and sighed. “Seriously?” He groaned, running a hand over the short hair on his head in irritation. “ _That's_ the way you break the news to him? Seriously?”

“What else was I supposed to say?” Derek replied indignantly, folding his arms across his chest. “It's true, isn't it?”

Dragging his eyes away from Derek's biceps, Stiles grimaced at Derek's face and was about to respond when Deaton pointedly cleared his throat. Looking back at the vet, Stiles' grimace turned into a sheepish look, and then into slight alarm as he realized Deaton looked _angry_. “Are you telling me that the Hale family are alive right this second?”

Nodding slowly, Stiles elaborated as Derek huffed irritably beside him. “Yeah, they just popped up in the house alive and everything, and Laura climbed out of the grave _behind_ the house, and the last thing they remember is,” burning alive? Getting torn in half? “... their last hours. So Derek's being paranoid and wants to know if you'd heard anything freaky going on around here lately.”

Deaton's attention focused on Stiles like a laser target, dark eyes boring into Stiles with enough intensity to make him seriously consider the effectiveness of hiding behind Derek's bulk. Then those eyes shifted to Derek, equally as intensive, and Deaton still looked... _shaken_ , that's the word – he looked the opposite of his cool self, like the news, like the Hale's being alive again, like all of it had just come from right field and swept him off his feet and now he was struggling to regain his balance. “I've heard nothing in the way of news about anything strange,” he finally answered, carefully picking his words like he always did for maximum vagueness. “But that doesn't mean this isn't something to brush off. This is bad. This is _very bad_.”

“How?” Derek demanded, leaning in with his broad shoulders over the quietly whining dog. “How is this bad? You've heard nothing strange, Beacon Hill's is the exact same as it's been for ages, so _how do you think this is bad_?”

Massaging his temples, Deaton shot back with an irritated, “Their mere existence is breaking the balance of everything, Derek, you know this! In _what_ world is the dead coming back alive a _good_ thing?”

“When it's _my family_.” Derek hissed, hackles raised and eyes glowing red. Stiles took a hasty step back, the dog's whine went up a pitch higher as Derek and Deaton faced off over the poor creature. “Obviously you don't know anything useful, so just keep your fucking pessimistic opinions to yourself. This is a _good thing_ , and for your sake I better not hear you say otherwise.” With that, Derek spun on his feet and stormed out, the sound of a bell jingling signalling that Derek had left the office.

In the silence that remained, Deaton slumped into himself with a sigh, running a hand over his face in exhaustion. He looked a decade older, in that moment, tired and barely staying upright, and Stiles carefully took a step towards him just in case the vet's legs gave out. After a moment, Deaton inhaled deeply, held the air in for a beat, then exhaled, visibly calming as he breathed out. “You know this won't end well, right Stiles?”

In answer, Stiles swallowed thickly, felt the phantom touch of lips on his own, and said, “Yeah, probably.”

There must have been something in his voice, something that alarmed Deaton, because the vet looked up and stared at him suspiciously, warily, like Stiles was going to suddenly go insane and lunge at him. “Is there... anything you want to tell me?”

Stiles thought about it, really did, mulled over everything and let himself just _think_. In the end though, he quietly replied, “No. You already know everything.”

Deaton stared at him, obviously not believing his words, but ultimately sighed – sadly, this time – and nodded in acceptance. “Very well, Stiles. If you'll excuse me, I have patients to attend too.”

With one last look at the dog still on the table, Stiles nodded and waved goodbye, turning around to leave. The bell jingled as he stepped out onto the pavement, walking towards his jeep where Derek stood fuming. As soon as he'd unlocked the car, Derek jerkily folded himself into the passenger seat, waiting impatiently for Stiles to follow. Seating himself into the driver seat, Stiles turned the car on and got them out of there as Derek glowered at the street lights.

“So where too, kind sir?” Stiles said, horrible British accent and all just to break the suffocating tension in the air.

Derek huffed, but dutifully gritted out, “Home.”

It wasn't too hard to figure out Derek meant the Hale house and not the Stilinski one from the finger he jabbed in the direction _opposite_ Stiles' own route home. The houses grew sparser and the trees grew thicker as Stiles dutifully drove them towards the preserve. Stiles drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, sneaking glances at an angry Derek, seeing the locked stubble-covered jaw, the thin lips, the death grip Derek had on the poor dashboard.

"You know...” he started hesitantly, not quite sure why he was even _trying_. “Deaton's not being cruel, here.” Before Derek could rudely tell him to shut up (Stiles just _knew_ that would be the first words out of Derek's mouth), Stiles bulldozed on, warming up to his topic as the words picked up speed. “You should see where he's coming from, because he's right about the whole 'balance of life and death' thing, and the fact that all of this is _very_ strange, you know? He's just being the neutral party here, looking at it from an outsider's perspective, and from where he's standing, it probably looks pretty bad, right?”

Throughout it all, Derek's fingers clenched and unclenched on the dashboard, not yet breaking the material. His lips thinned out even more, his eyes steadily began glowing until they were a permanently bright neon red, and finally, _finally_ , he interrupted Stiles with a snarl as he slammed both of his hands on the dashboard and shouted, “They're alive, Stiles!”

At Stiles' stunned silence (and hasty parking on the side of the road), Derek carried on with the force of a burst dam. “And I don't give a shit _how_ , or _why_ , but I'll make damn sure they stay that way!”

Silence. Derek brooded as Stiles stared at him, his heart slowly but surely returning back to normal after the fright Derek had given him in bursting out like that. Slowly, he adjusted himself until he was facing away from Derek, using the reflection of the glass to keep an eye on the werewolf anyway. He could see his own reflection too as he started the car up again, the cropped hair starting to grow out, the brown eyes, the moles, the serious downward slant of his lips, he could see himself, and could practically read his own thoughts in the identical face staring at him from the window.

There was no more lying about this to himself, no more denying, no more beating around the bushes or keeping a tiny flame of hope alive. Stiles had written off his own life with that kiss, however accidental it may have been, and confirmed it with a stamp when he decided to not tell Deaton. Of course Derek would do everything he could to keep them alive, of course he'd be desperate to see nothing but the good in this, ignore everything else. Of course Stiles' dad had been right, that the other shoe would sooner or later drop, but what nobody else knew was that it had already dropped, and Stiles' was suddenly living on borrowed time.

If the Hale's stayed alive, then Stiles would die. If he stayed alive, then they would die.

That was eleven lives for the price of one, some of which were even kids. Even Stiles couldn't argue with that logic. It was practically a bargain.

Nodding once to himself in confirmation, Stiles stayed silent for the rest of the ride to the Hale house. The memory of Laura, dirty and tired, hugging and thanking him near the trees popped up, and Stiles suddenly found himself hard pressed to cover up the shudder that ran up his spine.

_“I don't know what happened, or why you did it, but whatever it was, thank you.”_

Sooner or later, Stiles pulled up into the driveway of the Hale house, not so much turning off the car as putting it on idle. Derek frowned over at him, the first time he'd looked at him directly since his outburst, his eyes no longer red as they glanced at the keys still in ignition to Stiles and back again. His eyebrows furrowed together in that adorably intimidating way of his, and just so it was clear, Stiles had long since (like, immediately from the first meeting) acknowledged that Derek was hot. Like, so far out there hot that even Rachel from the police department, who was strictly into boobs, could tell. It was just a fact, like the sky was blue and people didn't generally bother to learn pi past 3.14, and Stiles hadn't done much passed noticing it, because hey, look, hot guy, move on, right?

Then Derek turned out to be a dick, and that had pretty much nullified whatever attraction Stiles might have possibly felt due to the laws of nature. It was probably for the best anyway, because things would have probably gotten pretty damn awkward if Stiles had popped a boner during the two hours he'd held Derek afloat during the whole pool thing. The whole “we don't trust each other” spiel had helped a lot too, because if being called a heartless bastard wasn't a mood killer, Stiles didn't know what was.

But then, after more lifesaving and being deep in each other’s metaphorical shit, Stiles had gotten to know Derek even more, past the surface bullshit and closer to the core. They'd had to acknowledge the trust that had accidentally popped up somewhere between the lifesaving, because whenever Derek was in trouble, Stiles somehow saved him, and whenever Stiles was in trouble, Derek came to the rescue. Stiles had spent most of that time still head over heels for Lydia, and then for the remainder, devastated by her and Jackson's One True Love to notice anything else – especially the fact that he and Derek were probably the chummiest out of the whole pack, leather jacket wearing trio included and all.

And now, two years down the line, hunters, kaminas, alphas and witches and _everything else_ , Stiles still knew Derek was a smoking tribute to Adonis, the whole Lydia thing still smarted like a bitch, and the former was still just a fact, while the latter was a sour point dealt with by the two of them ignoring the others complete existence whenever they were forced to be in the same room as each other. The harpies hadn't helped, and the unseelie's had just rubbed salt on the open wound with nothing short of glee.

“What?” He finally said, somewhat belatedly, dimly wondering if he'd accidentally forgotten to take his Adderral today.

The alpha werewolf huffed, leaned over to yank the keys out of the car – effectively killing the engine – and at Stiles' indignant, “Hey!” climbed out and stalked to his house.

Stiles had been kind of hoping to slink his way home without meeting the Hale's, but Derek had obviously seen right through him and taken the option right out of his hands. He dithered over whether or not to just take the long route home, check out the scenery, get home tired and aching and just exhausted enough to fall asleep easy. The thought was really attractive to him, more so than anything had been lately in a long time, but the thought of going home to an empty house had goose bumps rising up along his skin. So, Hale house then. Right.

Climbing out of the jeep, Stiles followed after Derek's stomping, letting his mouth run with sarcastic bitching as Derek kicked the door open like a brute. The act derailed him long enough into questioning why the door was open in the first place for Derek _to_ kick, but then _werewolves_ , so of course the door would be open because why would werewolves be worried about getting robbed? As soon as they were through the threshold, Derek reached back and grabbed Stiles by the scruff of his shirt, yanking the teen forward with a startled yelp and straight into the arms of a surprised Laura.

“Brought me a present, Der?” Laura asked sweetly, arms wrapping tightly around a spluttering Stiles with a wolfish grin. “Aaaw, I didn't know you cared!”

Derek threw his hands in the air, as if _he_ was the one that had been wronged, and growled, “You kept asking for him!”

Surprised by this, Stiles squeaked, “What?” but nobody paid him attention as Laura snorted inelegantly and replied, “Yes, yes I did. Thank you for kidnapping him and bringing him to me like a brute, brother of mine. Mom wants you in the back.”

“Wait,” Stiles tried again, desperately widening his eyes as Derek turned to leave. “Woah, woah, you can't just leave me--” but Derek disappeared into the house, a door opening and slamming shut a few seconds later, and ultimately leaving Stiles in the mercy of Laura Hale's not-so tender claws.

The steel strength of the arms embracing him loosened up a little, Laura moving Stiles until he was pressed up against her side, one of her arms around his shoulder. She steered him comfortably towards the living room, still looking amused. “My, what big eyes you have.”

Snorting despite himself (because little red riding hood would _never_ not get old), Stiles finally gave in and let himself be steered wherever she damn well pleased, noting the empty living room save for a blond haired man sitting on the sofa with a remote. The television was on, flicking from channel to channel as the man glanced at them before turning his attention back to the TV. “Right, no, move along kids. This is _my_ TV time. _Mine_.”

Laura rolled her eyes at him, manhandling Stiles into a seat beside the man, forcing Stiles to think that yes, the man did look an awful lot like Mr Hale, or, even worse, like a blonde version of Derek. There was something so strange and _weird_ about the thought that had Stiles squirming in his seat as Laura patted him on the head in a completely emasculating way, looking far too pleased at making him uncomfortable. “This is Jason,” she introduced, waving a hand at the blonde haired man. “Older brother. Well, ol _dest_.”

Surprised at the news, Stiles peered at the newly named Jason and shook the proffered hand. He didn't look particularly familiar beside the whole resemblance with Derek thing, but that wasn't surprising considering the fact that this would be the first time actually seeing the Hale's since their 'resurrection'. Jason grinned anyway, pointing a hand to the floor. “I was in the basement when you were around.” _When we woke up from the dead_ , was the unsaid clarification. “We haven't met.”

“Oh, right. I'm, uh,” God, Stiles, _words_. “I'm Stiles! Nice to meet you.” Mentally, he was screaming, because _older brother_ , Jesus fuck, he didn't know Derek had an older brother- of course he didn't, who was he joking? Nobody knew, except maybe his dad and whoever else was old enough to actually remember the Hale's. It wasn't as if Derek would've told them, anyway. Stiles would have never pegged Derek as the bratty baby of the family, but he was starting to realize that Derek really, _really_ , was. Bratty, that is. And the Hale baby. “Does that mean you bully Derek like Laura does?”

Jason burst out into surprised laughter, Laura growling playfully and taking a swipe at Stiles head, who ducked with all the grace of a flailing, spazzy teenager. She snapped her teeth at him, showing off the fangs there, disappearing just as quickly as they'd appeared. Awed at the casual display of control, Stiles wondered what Laura's anchor was as Jason replied. “She bullies everyone,” he drawled dryly, eyeing his sister with a cocked eyebrow. “You'll get used to it.”

Hell, now that Stiles actually thought about it, did Laura know about Kate? She obviously had some issues with the Argent's – he could distinctly remember bad vibes coming off her when he'd mentioned them – but just how much did she know? Half distracted by his thoughts, Stiles asked, “So where's everybody else?”

Laura smirked, jabbing a thumb towards the back of the house as she sat on Stiles' free side, boxing him in between brother and sister. “Watching Derek get his ass handed to him by mom, probably. She wasn't too pleased with how lame of an alpha he was. Said his control was worse than a cub's.” Her eyes bore into him, going deadly serious for a moment before brightening up with a cheery smile. “We got lucky with that rouge alpha here anyway, weakened him together, and Derek took the last blow, remember?”

“Um-” an elbow was violently jabbed into his side, and _oh_ , oh _right_ , the cover story! The one where Laura had never died, and thus he and Laura should totally be comfortable with each other because they'd known each other and been pack for the past two years! _Riiiight_. “Yeah! Totally.” Stiles quickly corrected himself, nodding his head wildly. “I kinda wanna see Derek get his ass kicked, though.”

Apparently, it was the right thing to say, because Jason laughed and slapped Stiles on the back in approval. “Hell yes, let's go see.”

They quickly hustled to the backyard (or the forest, Stiles didn't know what the correct term here was), where the rest of the Hale pack stood in a loose circle. He could see Isaac and Erica, the former looking perfectly at home among the old Hale pack, and Erica just seemed happy to be watching a fight.

A quick peek inside the circle showed Derek, shirtless and panting, circling around his mom, who looked barely winded and comfortable in her thick sweater. Stiles happily drank in the sight of Derek, tan skin glistening with sweat, muscles rolling as he lunged at his mom who deftly danced out of the way. He winced when she immediately – as swift as the fucking wind – struck out right after Derek, opening a long wound along his flank. Derek hissed, rolling out of another attack and back to his feet, putting up a fight as he swept his mother of her feet. Erica cheered, as did the woman Stiles recognized from his grocery shopping – Emma? Sounded about right. –  and Derek got this cocky little smirk on his face that usually drove Stiles right up the goddamn wall in irritation.

Laura snorted, slinging an arm over his shoulder again, and pushed him further into the group until Stiles was surrounded on all sides by the pack, buffeted by warm bodies. A kind faced man and two little girls made room for him, welcoming him with smiles and curious eyes, the man patting him on the shoulder companionably. “Robert,” he introduced himself, still smiling kindly. “It's good to meet you again, Stiles.”

Swallowing thickly, Stiles bobbed his head in greeting. “Nice to meet you too, Mr... Hale?” At a nod of confirmation, Stiles repeated the nod, looking down when he felt something tug at his shirt. One of the girls had grabbed a fist full of his shirt, looking up at him with big blue eyes, and Stiles felt his hackles rise because _kids_. Why were kids standing around watching their family members fight? Sure, it was a friendly spar, but kids at that age (and the other girl looked even _younger_! What!) would confuse violence for caring, and then they'd just be screwed up for life!

“Why do you smell like Derek?” The little girl interrupted his thoughts, shouting to be heard over Erica's increasingly louder cheers. “Are you a we'ewolf?”

Robert had the other girl, a baby by all accounts, in his arms, and Stiles didn't need to be awesome to recognize a father when he saw one. “No,” Stiles answered the little girl. “I'm just human, but I'm one of Derek's _friends_.”

The little girl nodded, brown locks tumbling around her shoulders as she accepted the explanation without so much as blinking. “Good.” She said rather decisively. “I like you. I'm Lisa.”

Struggling against the ridiculous urge to scoop her up and hold her close to his chest, Stiles nodded just as decisively as he could, imitating her. “Good, I like you too, Lisa. I'm Stiles.”

Laura made a cooing noise, removing her arm from Stiles' shoulder to pick up Lisa and hold her in her arms. To Stiles' eternal surprise, Lisa growled back, eyes flashing gold before returning back to her cerulean blue, and Laura let an equally wolfy sound out in return. Robert laughed at Stiles' expression, nodding down at the baby in his arms. “She's a werewolf too,” he said, rolling his eyes playfully. “Both of them are. That one over there,” he jerked his head towards a teenage girl who was loudly cheering on Mrs Hale, “is a werewolf too. She's Derek's little sister, Cora. I don't think you saw her when you were here last; she was still in the basement with Jason. But Ty, my boy – he's seven –  is human, just like me.”

“That's... pretty cool.” Stiles said, staring at the baby in Robert's arm. The little girl gurgled at him, waving a chubby arm in the air, and Stiles gave in and grabbed one of her chubby arms carefully, shaking it and grinning at the happy noise it got him in return.

“Your dad came by the other day,” Robert continued with a smile. “Helped us out a lot. He's pretty great, a good sheriff. You're in school, right? How's that going for you?”

Stiles answered as best as he could, carrying on the conversation with- with- with Derek's _uncle_ , and he was suddenly reminded again, abruptly like a lightning strike, that this was Derek's _family_ , and he just couldn't get over that. It was Derek's _family_ , for god's sake, and he knew he'd been repeating it over and over again to himself, but every time he did it was like getting punched in the solar plexus, the breath rushing right out of him, and igniting sparks down his nerve endings and panic in his gut. Maybe it was half because of the situation, because of _how_ they had ended up here, standing around in a loose circle while Derek twisted and rolled, muscles flexing, back arching, the waistband of his jeans dropping lower and lower with each acrobatic movement until the V of his hips was more than visible. Stiles wasn't the only one to notice it, not with the wolf whistle Erica helpfully supplied, or the disgusted grunt from Jason and Laura's cat call.

Mr. Hale was standing on the opposite side of them, tall and still, arms folded across his shoulder. A frown was on his face, ice blue eyes tracking the fight critically, studying Derek's movement, obviously seeing flaws and noting where to nurture improvements. A single glance upwards at Stiles was his greeting, which was more than Stiles was expecting considering he had the feeling Mr Hale kinda, sorta, totally didn't like him, but maybe he'd been too quick to think that on the first meeting. Mr Hale looked like a veritable clone of Derek; except older, less intense and slightly softer around the edges. It was the personality, the way he held himself, the broad shoulders always straight and the lack of words that came from not being shy, but comfortable in his silence, that was Derek in a nutshell.

It was dizzying, standing surrounded by Derek's family, ridiculously surreal, causing him vertigo and the sick sensation of nausea pooling in his stomach. That was Mr Hale over there, Derek's _dad_ , like Stiles and his own dad, and standing beside Stiles' was Laura, Derek's _sister_ , and all these years, all this _time_ , Derek had been without them, a Stiles without his dad, without his mom, without Scott or Ms McCall or his jeep or home or _anybody_. _That_ 's how Derek had been all these years, and add on the sheer fact that he was a _werewolf_ and werewolf's were touchy feely and had complicated pack dynamics meant that Derek would have been a hundred times worse off than Stiles in the same situation.

But they were back now, the Hale's – Derek had his sheriff back, his jeep, his mom and his home – and Stiles didn't have to look too closely to see that Derek, for the first time _ever_ , looked _happy_ , even as his mom body-slammed him into the floor. The two werewolves rolled around, one coming out on top for a few precious seconds before going down under again, but nobody bothered to pretend that Derek was still fighting for dominance, or that Mrs Hale was still trying to school her boy. Derek was fighting just to _touch_ , and Mrs Hale was all but coddling him, going for grappling moves that no actual fighter would bother doing until they finally came to a stop in a heap of tangled limbs, hugging each other tightly. Derek had his face hidden in the curve of his mom's throat, fingers spasming on the material of her shirt.

Mr Hale, looking as if he'd been expecting this right from the start, huffed in amusement, rolling his eyes (looking exactly like Derek right in that moment, holy shit) as he strutted forward and just dropped right on top of the pair. Like a signal, the rest of the pack descended on each other, everybody getting in on the action, a puppy pile of epic proportions, and Stiles- Stiles couldn't do this. Hell no. No way. He- He just _couldn't_.

So he ran.

Not outright anyway, but he squirmed out of his place, using the distraction of everybody piling on top of each other to ease out of the group, and made a beeline for the trees. There was no way he could escape to his jeep and get out without alerting everybody, but he could go 'for a walk', 'get some fresh air', 'give them privacy', and come back when everybody was less... _everybody_ , and go home. Yeah, he could definitely do that. So that's what he would do.

It was still pretty early, an hour or two away from lunch, an hour or two before he had a perfectly reasonable excuse that was a lunch date with his dad to escape. The forest was bright and airy, the trees separating the sunlight into different rays of light that hit the ground just so. It was picturesque, beautiful in a way the preserve rarely ever was, and Stiles shuddered a little to himself at the lingering sense of unease that hung off the branches. These woods, while pretty, didn't bother to hide their darkness, showcasing it in a sleight of hand that usually had someone hurting. Funny, how it had been the unseelie's that taught him that.

Passing a small creek, Stiles lumbered on, stumbling every now and then from the exhaustion he was still feeling. He hadn't slept well last night, not with insomnia and fear keeping him paralyzed in bed with thoughts, and certainly not with Derek coming in to tell him that Deaton was in town. Add in the emotional rollercoaster that had been this morning (and holy hell, it was _still_ morning; Stiles had a whole day to still go through) and it wasn't all too surprising when he collapsed against the bark of a huge tree and curled in on himself.

He couldn't hear the pack anymore (that's what they were, in the end, wasn't it?), couldn't hear anything, not even woodland critters. No birds, no squirrels, no rabbits or mountain lions, nothing to provide distraction to the thoughts in his head, to the way Deaton had responded, to Derek's outburst in the car, to little Lisa and her big blue eyes and her adorable little puppy growl. His breathing picked up, sharp bursts of air punching out of him and burning their way through windpipes, his nose picked up a perfume long gone, his ears heard a lullaby no longer sung, and the demon's laughter echoed like a background song, soundtrack to Stiles' growing panic. He curled in on himself, bending his knees, tucking his head in between them, breathing harshly even to his own ears as the demon's words played on a loop in his head, over and over again, laughing at him, telling him his _part._ He could remember Harris' eyes, usually filled with _emotions_ , even if they were disdain and loathing, turned black and cold and _dead_ , and the sound of the teacher screaming as the demon left- that _sound_ -

Stiles' breath stuttered in his throat, died a quiet death, and the ocean of panic swallowed him whole.

He didn't _want to die_ , he didn't want to leave his dad (god, his _dad_ ) behind. Who would take care of him? Who would watch his diet, who would keep an eye on his work hours? Who would bribe the other cops into limiting the coffee and Mrs. Singer down the road into selling him nothing but the healthy cupcakes? Scott would be fine, he had Allison, Isaac, his mom. The sheriff had no one, no one but Stiles, and Stiles was going to _die_.

Something trickled into the mess in his head, making him hunch down further, push his head down further between his knees. Black spots started dancing around his vision, obscuring the forest floor between his sneakers. It felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, pushing him down, forcing the air out of his lungs, trying to break his ribs. It felt horrible, like the worst way to die, but it at least beat burning in Hell, right?

Dimly, hysterically, Stiles wondered what would happen if he died now, eleven months and a week before his time.

“--tiles!” Would he go to Heaven? See mom? If demons existed and Hell was legit, then didn't that mean Heaven did too? “--iles!”

“ _Stiles!_ ”

A sharp, burning, pain exploded across his left cheek, Stiles gasped, lurching away from it, arms tiredly rising to fight off the attack, when he finally recognized his name being repeated, over and over again. “Wha...?” He answered muzzily, trying to curl in around his stinging cheek and vulnerable parts. “'eave me a'one...”

“Stiles! You need to breathe--” He... knew that voice? That was Derek, wasn't it? A half sob escaped his throat, painful and jarring, just like Derek must have felt when his whole family popped out alive, right? “Breathe, Stiles, take a deep breath in, hold it to three and exhale. Do it.”

Far too used to following that tone of voice after two years of monsters growing more and more vicious, Stiles' lungs rattled as he tried breathing in. It didn't work – it never did, at first – but he tried again, ignoring the way his brain felt like it was a minute shy of exploding from pressure, and breathed in again. There was something moving next to his arm, his forehead was resting against something that kept vibrating in time with Derek's voice – his throat? Why was Stiles resting his forehead on Derek's throat? – and the weight around him, the weight Stiles had thought was metaphorical, felt more like arms, as if Derek was holding him.

Stiles _hated_ being touched during a panic attack, all it did was make him worse, but whatever was moving – Derek's chest, it was rising and falling, because Derek was breathing, right? – was strange and new enough to distract him. Stiles breathed in, held the air in his screaming lungs for three seconds, then breathed out. He did it again, and again, and again, until his breathing matched the rise and fall of Derek's chest, until the hollow of Derek's throat was moving only with the force of every exhale and inhale.

As soon as he'd settled back in his bones, Stiles squirmed out of Derek's embrace, shuddering at the feel of outside stimuli on his already exhausted senses. He curled in on himself, hiding his face in the fold of his crossed arms, and tried ignoring the world. Derek was a solid presence next to him, just _there_ even when Stiles had his eyes closed, and the need to demand what had just happened was palpable in the air.

“You haven't had a panic attack that bad since the alphas.” Derek started with, blunt as ever. “Why?”

Stiles swallowed thickly, trying to wet his throat, licking his suddenly dry lips as he thought of what to say. Any lie would be obvious to werewolf ears, but Stiles had long since perfected the art of gliding the hell past that with half-truths and run arounds. “It's been a long time since... since _family_ , y'know?” He finally settled on, wincing at his own words.

Derek didn't immediately respond, maybe mulling it over whether or not Stiles was lying like that time he'd said he was hurt a bit but it was just a bruise, only to later on pass out from blood loss. (Stiles hadn't lied, he _had_ been hurt a bit, and there _had_ been a bruise; he just hadn't mentioned the nine inch long cut from a machete thanks to a rouge hunter.) Stiles didn't twitch or fidget, too busy trying to get his bearings back, brain hyper aware of his surroundings even as his body sagged with fatigue.

“Fine,” the alpha finally said, and Stiles winced again at the dubious note in Derek's voice. “Come on, I'll drive you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> no but is teen wolf even alive anymore.


End file.
